POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : An example of confirmation bias? : Re: An example of confirmation bias? Server Time
7 Sep 2024 01:22:19 EDT (-0400)
  Re: An example of confirmation bias?  
From: Darren New
Date: 6 Jul 2009 13:28:24
Message: <4a523438$1@news.povray.org>
Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Because you're believing in a different God than Ray Comfort or Fred Phelps.
> 
>   Btw, I don't know if you have noticed, but I have never stated what
> I believe in.

I believe in the past it has become clear, but that's fine. If I say "you" 
here, then take it as "the person who is upset that this video is attacking 
their personal interpretation of god". :-)

>> Do you believe in the same God that the people who flew planes into the 
>> world trade centers believed in?
> 
>   That kind of expression makes it sound like "God" was an ideology, and
> consequently different people could have different "Gods", ie. different
> ideologies. (Maybe it is like that in reality, but that's not what eg.
> christianity is about.)

Well, yes, that's kind of my point.

The problem with arguing against the point "God exists" is that the argument 
tends to go something like

"God does not exist."
   "What if God is really just the person who set up the laws of physics,
    and he has nothing to do with anything after that, and isn't even a
    personality, and has no effect on the world?"
"OK, maybe *that* God might exist."
   "By the way, he hates homosexuals."

By saying "you're believing in a different God", it kind of jars believers 
out of a rut of thinking that since there is only one god, whatever they 
believe about him must be universally true. Since we're arguing against the 
universal truth of God, this is a useful tactic. It's the same as saying 
"The god they believe in behaves differently than the god you believe in," 
but with a bit more of an assertion that keeps it from being dismissed offhand.

Like, when people ask me "Do you believe in God", I don't just say "No", I 
say "Not the way you do."  God has obvious influence in the world - just ask 
any homosexuals in California. That's a sense in which "god exists". But if 
you don't define "god" and you don't define "exists", then arguing whether 
"god exists" is always going to lead to this sort of conversation.

The video just skipped over defining which god and in what sense exists that 
it's arguing against.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.


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